should find some alteration in the price of it in few years and I doubt not but our Clothiers could pick out enough of the finest sort of it to make Cloth very little inferiour to the Spanish And it is easie to be made appear that we spend as much Spanish Cloth in our own Kingdoms and Plantations belonging to the Crown of England and a great part of that too not manufactur'd by our own People as Dutch black as is worn in all the Kingdoms of the World besides and more So that if any shall object against the laying a Duty upon the Spanish Wool I hope they will give us leave to enjoyn our own People to wear no Cloth but what is manufactured by our selves and made of our own Wool and if this Consumption of our Cloth at home be added but to that Trade we have yet left abroad for it we should soon find an Increase in the price of our Wool And I know no reason why any should be offended with us for endeavouring our own Interest and Advantage the general design of all Nations neither can this spending of our own Cloth among our selves hinder any thing of our Trade abroad And that this may appear to be no new or upstart Project the Statutes of 2 Edward the 3. Cap. 1 2 3. may sufficiently satisfie us in which Kings Reign it was that the Manufacture of our Wool began to be our National Employment For among all our Staple Commodities Wool had at that time the Precedency as being the most principal and ancient Commodity of the Kingdom wherein the generality of the People were deeply concern'd and the Manufacture of it though of long use among our selves yet it received but little Encouragement for a Trade into Foreign Parts till these times the Flemmings having the principal Manufacture then by the continual supply of Wool that they received from hence But the Wisdom of this great Prince soon discern'd of what unspeakable value the Manufacture of our own Wool would be to the Trade of this Kingdom who like a provident and careful Father look'd farther than his present time and who beingwell acquainted with the Flemmings Affairs by a joynt Engagement with them in the War with France had therein gain'd so good an Opinion amongst them that he might adventure to change a Complement for a Courtesie the Staples where our Wool was sold being now taken clean away and by the Statute of 2. Edw. 3. Cap. 1. made Felony to carry any Wool out of the Realm He now prosecutes his Design for the setling of the Manufacture at home and represents to those Flemmings the Danger they were in by the bordering Wars with France and the peacable Condition of England and freedom of the People that are Subjects here Propounds an Invitation for them to come over hither wherein he promises them the same Priviledges and Immunities with his own Subjects which they accepted and came over and brought their Manufacture with them which could never after be removed hence So as now the Manufacture and our Wool were joyned together and so long as they agree together both will thrive but if they once part as the Spanish Wool at this time puts fair at it they will both be losers in the Conclusion The Manufacture of our Wool being brought to this Settlement at home this Heroick King Edward the Third makes this other Statue in the same 11th year of his Reign That no Merchant Foreign or Denizon nor any other after the Feast of St. Michael shall cause to be brought privately or apertly by himself nor by any other into the said Lands of England Ireland Wales and Scotland within the Kings Power any Cloths made in any other Places than in the same upon forfeiture of the said Cloth and further to be punished at the Kings Will as is aforesaid But because this Nation formerly had been and still is too much wedded to the wearing of Foreign Manufactures the importing of which did hinder the using of our own home-made Manufactures for too much of them make our own a Drug our Nation Poor and our People to want Work As a Cure for this Disease our own English Cloth is enjoyn'd by a Law to be worn by all Persons under the Degree of a Lord and then the Wisdom of the times thought fit to provide for the true and perfect making of Cloth several Statutes were made in this Kings time Richard the Second and were also confirm'd by Queen Elizabeth and King James but especially in the fifth year of Edward the 6th Cap. 6. For the Length Bredth Weight and Goodness of all sorts of Cloth with several Proviso's to prevent Frauds and Abuses both in the making and selling thereof such care our Ancestors have had in all former and latter Ages for the improvement of this our Woollen Manufacture by which we may plainly see of what absolute Necessity it is to be encouraged and advanced Shall it now by us after so much Care and Industry used by them to settle and bring it to our Doors and into our very Houses be neglected and scarce thought worth the Entertainment for fear of I know not what Jealousies of disobliging some Foreign Nation by putting a Duty on their Wool Shall their Wisdom and Prudence that judg'd this Manufacture and Trade for it the great Support and and Glory of our Nation be call'd in question by our carelesness and shall we suffer our selves to be thus cheated of it when we are as well able to maintain and defend it as they and by Exprience find that it is our chiefest if not only Manufacture and Support of the Strength Honour and Wealth of our English Nation For which way can we continue a Trade long that have no Money of our own growth but only what is brought unto us for Commodities and if we can find nothing of our own to barter and exchange for we must in short time sink our trade abroad if we intend to keep our Money at home our Staple Commodities must therefore of Necessity be advanc'd and encourag'd to enable us by the return thereof to hold a Commerce with those Parts of the World that must supply us for if Trade be maintained barely out of the main Stock the Kingdom in time must needs be decay'd and so brought to Penury it being our Magazin A third Cause of the great Abatement and low Price of our Wool may be this viz. The decaying Condition of the Merchant-Adventure and Hamborough Company within these few years a Company that vended many thousands of our English Cloths yearly for after that our Staples for Wool were taken away and the Manufacture of our Cloth setled among us this Company also had their Motion from Flanders through Holland untill at last it came to be fixed for the conveniency of those Eastern Countries at Hamborough And it would not be needless if the discreetest of them were advised with to know the Reasons they can
power of any private Persons to sink the Trade and Manufacture of our Wool as now they can For certainly a Liberty for a Private Trade in some cases may bring that Mischief upon the Publick Concern of a Nation not easily to be removed again I will only instance one Passage which may be fresh in every man's memory that had then any Concern in Wool to shew what command the great Clothiers Factors and others have of that Commodity and the Trade for it When the Peace was last made with the Dutch about ten years since by the Mediation of the Spanish Ambassadour and the French left wholly out in that Agreement the price of our Wool in less than a Months time did rise from 18 s. and 19 s to 25 s. and 26 s. the weight that is a quarter part more than it would yield a Week before the News of that Agreement with Holland But the Scene quickly shifted for the Parliament being soon after Prorogued our Wool did not so fast advance before but now it came tumbling down so that it return'd not only in a Week or Fortnights time to its former price but pass'd by without any stay or stop until it was almost impossible to run lower even to 12 and 13 s. the weight What should be the reason of this was there more Wool now discover'd or was there like to be less Trade Certainly there was as much Wool in the Kingdom of our own growth an hundred years ago as now We have no increase of Sheep for all those Lands that now feed to wit our Downs and Sheep-Pastures could never be employ'd to other Use Then it must be in the Trade And if so then we may see where the Command of that lyes as those Dealers like the Motions of the Times they shall either advance or sink it at their pleasure for the Trade lies sullen and must be rows'd it hath been so long manag'd by some particular Persons that they now look upon it not so much the Staple Manufacture and chief Commodity we have to support the Wealth and Honour of our Nation as a Business only for some few men to gain Wealth and Estates by But to proceed Now what quantity of this Spanish Wool is brought yearly into this Kingdom and here made into Cloth and how much of it is transported when made is worth our Enquiry And upon this Enquiry I doubt it will appear that there is as much Spanish Cloth spent and worn among our own People as the Spanish Wool will make that is imported for in lieu of those few Medlies we send abroad in Trade we have a supply of Blacks c. brought out of Holland to us and here sold at double the rate of that made in our own Kingdom of the same goodness For at this day the very Servants and Mechanicks especially in Towns and Cities will scorn to wear any Cloth but Spanish if their Purses can but reach the price It is not many years since that Spanish Cloth of the same goodness they now make was sold for 23 s. and 24 s. the yard by the Clothier which he now sells for 15 s. and 16 s. the yard and so long as it can be bought at this low price there is scarce a Cobler but will have his best Suit of it In a word all the Ruine that hath happen'd to our Clothing Trade by the low price of our Wool cannot be imputed to the Exportation of our English Wool but to the Importation of the Spanish and other Foreign Wool without paying any Duty or Custom for the same And this among other Grievances attending the Clothing Trade the Grand Jury of the County of Somerset at their General Quarter Sessions presented as the Grievance and Complaint of the whole County the which I have here set down verbatim as it was to have been presented to the late Kings most Excellent Majesty in Council Somerset At the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held at Brewton in and for the Country aforesaid on the Thirteenth day of January in the Thirty Sixth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles the Second by the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King c. The Presentment of the Grand Jury there was as followeth viz. HEARING the daily sad and lamentable Complaint of the greatest part of the Clothiers of this Country concerning the great Decay of their Trade whereby many of them with in few years last past have been ruin'd and undone And finding by sad experience the great fall that is happened of late on the price of English Wool that Commodity now yielding but little more than the one half the Value of what it was wont to be sold for at the beginning of the late unhappy Rebellion in this Kingdom And having seriously considered these things do humbly conceive the Causes of these great Evils to be the Importation of Spanish and other Foreign Wools without paying any Custom or Impost for the same And the great Abuses that have been put upon the Clothiers at the Principal Mart for Cloth in this Kingdom by a sort of People called Factors Men first set up in the late Times of Distraction and increasing ever since in Number and Power till now at length they have gotten the sole Command and Sale of most mens Cloth brought thither to be sold And have thereby advanc'd themselves from little or nothing to be Men of great Estates and as much impoverished their Masters who sadly complain of these Abuses and are left without prospect of a Remedy The Consideration of which Mischiefs growing more and more upon us and if not timely prevented being likely in the end to prove the Ruine of this ancient Staple Commodity and Manufacture of our Kingdom hath caused us at this time to make this following Presentment First That the Wool of this County in particular as well as of the whole Kingdom in general is the greatest Staple we have And that which adds more to the Rents and Improvement of the Real Value of the Lands and Revenues thereof than any one Commodity whatsoever And that it is as much our Interest if not more to improve the Rents and Revenues of the Lands and Estates of this Kingdom as to Maintain the Trade without which Improvement we shall in no case be able to raise any considerable Sum of Money by a Land-Tax if any sudden or extraordinary occasion should require it We Present therefore That the Importation of Spanish and other Foreign Wools without paying any Duty or Custom for the same is a very great prejudice to the price of English Wool and so consequently contributes much to the Abatements of the Rents and Profits issuing from Lands We Present That the making of Woollen Cloth is the greatest Manufacture of this Kingdom and that wherein many thousands of poor People are employed and set to work and thereby Relieved and Maintained and that since the time that the Art of Clothing was first known amongst us it has continued free untill the beginning of the late Rebellion there sprung up a sort of People who under the name of Factors of Blackwell-Hall have gotten into their Power the Management and Disposal of most of the Cloth that is sold there And besides are grown to be the greatest Merchants of Oyl and Dying-stuffs but chiefly of Spanish Wool all goods belonging to the Clothing Trade of whom the Clothier is forced to buy the Factor having his Stock both of Cloth and Money in his own hands And therefore We present that these Factors of Blackwell-Hall are a Publick Nusance and Prejudice to the Clothing Trade and to have been the Ruine of many poor Clothiers and the Causes of many other Mischiefs and Inconveniencies that now lye heavy upon us Item We farther Present that this Honourable Bench will be pleased to implore the Royal Power and Prerogative of His Sacred Majesty for convenient Remedies to these great Abuses And that this Presentment may be with all Submission presented to His Majesty as the Grievance and Complaint of the whole Country Thomas Ludwell Joseph Gappy Barnard Russ William Ridcut Thomas Pitman John Bradny John Mulford Sen. Thomas Gapper Jun. Thomas Field William Lewis Thomas Biging Thomas Harvye John Mabz Wor. Brice Henry Strode Gabriel Iveleife Robert King Vera Cop ' Ex ' per Ph. Bennet Cl. Pac. This is a true Copy of the Grand Juries Presentment which we agree to and desire it may be presented to His Majesty in Council by Mr. Clarke Weymouth Fitzharding Fra. Powlett E. Phelipps John Hunt Ed. Berkeley Tho. Wyndham Fra. Warre Will. Basset Geo. Clarke Jo. Harington
A TREATISE OF WOOL AND THE Manufacture of it In a LETTER to a FRIEND Occasion'd upon a Discourse concerning the great Abatements of Rents and Low Value of Lands Wherein is shewed how their Worth and Value may be advanced by the Improvement of the Manufacture and Price of our English WOOL Together with the PRESENTMENT of the Grand JURY of the County of Somerset at the General Quarter Sessions begun at Brewton the Thirteenth Day of January 1684. LONDON Printed for William Crooke at the Green Dragon without Temple Bar. 1685. SIR IT is now seven years since I publish'd a Treatise of this Nature it came forth then accompanied with something concerning Hospitality and the Consumption of our Cattel But the Age at present being not that way inclin'd I have wholly omitted that part and shall only offer in this that which concerns our English Wool and the Manufacture of it For I find that a great many are very busie about this Commodity and the Trade of it But yet I do not find any Proposals offered whereby the Price of our English Wool may be advanc'd I shall therefore lay down this Assertion That the greatest cause of the Abatement of Rents and low Value upon Lands at this day which I suppose every man that hath any is sensible of hath been the great fall and low price of Wool for these few years past Then on the contrary the only way to raise our Rents and to bring our Lands to their former worth and value again must be by advancing the price of our English Wool Now which way this is to be done will be the Subject of this following Treatise which is desired may be accepted as it is freely offered to wit as the real intention of a true English man for the benefit of his Native Country The Occasion of publishing this at this time was meerly accidental for being at White-hall some few Months since I heard of great Complaints made with a Petition to the King and Council setting forth the Transportation of our Wool to the great Prejudice of our Clothing Trade and the ruining of our Poor for want of Work with many dismal Apprehensions of the evil Consequences thereof but not one word offer'd which way either to advance the Trade of this our Woollen Manufacture or to raise the Price of our English Wool But the whole Design I perceived was for the Clothiers Advantage to buy Wool cheap and for the Merchant and Drapers to have Cloth at a low price both very destructive not only to the Kingdom in General but also to the Trade it self as shall hereof be made appear The Complaint I confess was of great Concernment that our Wool and other Materials for the making of Cloth as Fuller's Earth c. ought not to be exported the many Acts of Parliament in all Ages since King Edward the Third for preserving this Trade and Manufacture to our selves and prohibiting under severe Penalties the Transportation of our English Wool is sufficient to convince us of what absolute Necessity the Manufacturing of our Wool was look'd upon to be as to the Wealth and Trade of our English Nation And what Advantage our Ancestors in former Ages even to the times of the late Rebellion made by this Trade of Cloth The Account of the Russia and Turkey Company but especially the Hamborough Company which took off so many thousand Cloths yearly may serve us only to bewail the present Decay of so great a Trade So that our Business now is not only to prohibit the Exportation of our Wool but more chiefly to advance the Trade and Sale of our Cloth whereby the price of our English Wool may be raised again to what it was formerly worth For to what purpose is it to keep all our own Wool at Home and to admit all other Wool to come in Gratis if we have not vent enough for that of our own growth I confess it may sometimes enrich the Clothier by buying cheap but I am sure it will impoverish the Gentlemen and Farmers by selling at so low a price therefore if by the following Discourse our ancient Trade for this Commodity may be restored and our Wool brought to a more considerable price then it now bears whereby the Rents and Revenues of the Kingdom may be increas'd and our Lands brought to their former Worth and Value again I hope this small Treatise may be accepted Sir You may please to remember upon the Discourse we had on this Subject that it was your desire I should give you the Heads and Substance thereof against the next meeting of the Parliament that as you found a convenient Opportunity and compliance with you herein by some of your Fellow-Members with whom you did intend first to advise you would accordingly proceed in it for the Publick good but the Business of the Popish Plot then breaking out all things of this nature were then put off and this also was laid aside But meeting with this Opportunity I thought it a very fit time to retrieve it especially considering that neither our Wool or our Clothing Trade have since advanc'd but on the contrary grown worse and worse even to so low an Ebb that it is impossible to sink lower And that it being at this time more particularly in his Majesties Royal hands to dispose and regulate the sale of Cloth at that great and chiefest Market in the Kingdom for the same at Blackwel-hall in London by appointing such Officers and such Regulation of the sale of Cloth there together with such Rules and Orders to be observed both by the Clothier Merchant and Draper according to the several Laws and Statutes heretofore made for the Encouragement of this great Trade as in his Princely Wisdom shall be thought most fit and convenient And although many offers have been made of late years for England's Improvement which shews that we are sufficiently sensible of our decaying Condition if we could but tell how to help our selves yet it is a very great Question whether several of those Designs might in the end prove for the real Good and Benefit of this Kingdom as to endeavour the planting of several Foreign Commodities whereby to engross the Manufacture of other Nations to our selves for the saving as we alledge many thousands of pounds at home which they cost us abroad and the cutting of so many Rivers to make them Navigable through the very heart of most parts of the Kingdom to London whereby all our Trade and Carriage might pass up and down without Waggons and Horses at far cheaper rates than now they do by them with several other the like Projects that carry with them fair Pretences of Thrift and good Husbandry while on the other hand it might easily be made appear that many of those Designs would prove so disadvantagious to us notwithstanding the specious shew of Profit That our Lands which are already fallen a fourth part of their ancient Worth and Value would
not then in most parts of the Kingdom yield the one half especially the Pasture and Meadow Grounds For it is not the having all things of our own growth on the one hand and the saving of our Money on the other can make us Rich neither can our Increase and Plenty in some sence be said to be our Wealth if we have not a suitable Vend and Consumption thereof Besides Nature hath otherwise provided and so furnish'd each particular part of the World with something which the rest want whereby to preserve a Friendship and Commerce together Sir I have hinted at this that the following Discourse might meet with the less Prejudice when the Design of it shall appear that it is not for the prohibiting any Foreign Commodity or for the engrossing all within our own growth but that which we call our own growth and Manufacture may be spent if not by others abroad yet among our selves at home And this I think is so reasonable that no Nation in the World but will allow us that Liberty Let us now proceed to that which is intended in this following Discourse and in the first place to shew how much our Estates and Rents are fallen from their former Value within these few years and what may probably be the Causes thereof with some ways and means that may be conceived necessary to restore them to that value and esteem again First then that our Rents are abated and that the Value of our Lands are fallen most mens particular experience will justifie me in the truth hereof For from twenty years purchase the usual rate not many years since they are now sunk to eighteen at the highest and in some places sixteen or seventeen years purchase is the selling rate and these very same Estates at a low under value so that if we sum up what an hundred pounds a year the Rent well paid was worth thirty or forty years since in the beginning of the late Rebellious Wars we shall find that the real value of our Estates are a third part less than they were then and but two parts of three of what Money they would have yielded then can now be raised where any man hath occasion to sell For Example Let an hundred pound a year be the standard the just value then that this hundred pound a year would have yielded at twenty years purchase is two thousand pound Now there is twenty pound a year with the least and in many places thirty pound a year Abatement in Rent out of this hundred We will touch the Sore as easie as possible and allow but twenty per Annum abatement in Rent so there remains but eighty pound which at eighteen years purchase comes to 1440 pound so that at this rate here is near a third part lost of the real Value what the Lands and Estates of the Kingdom were formerly worth And this we may believe that that Parliament about seven years since were very sensible of Witness their many Debates in their several Sessions about raising Money for his Majesties supplies and the great care the Houses then took in all those Debates that none of those Supplies should be provided for by a Land Tax whilst there could any other way possibly be found out or thought upon and those small helps as the Excise on the Law c. which were so long a raising but a very inconsiderable Sum at last cannot be look'd upon to stand the King and Kingdom in any stead should there be any extraordinary occasion for Money If we should expect any supply from the Merchant and from Trade they will tell you that there is as much Custome and Excise laid upon all sorts of Commodities as the Trade is able to bear This shall be the general Answer of the whole Body of Merchants and the Whole-sale-dealers throughout the Kingdom especially in London so that little help is to be expected from them Have we not reason then to endeavour the Restoring our Lands and Rents to their former value and esteem when we have hardly any other way left for the Preservation of our Lives Estates yea and our Trade too for should there be any extraordinary Occasion for a speedy supply of Money when all Heads and Wits are puzl'd which way to raise it there can be no speedier way possibly found out then by a Land Tax or Subsidy which is much the same provided our Lands and Rents may be raised to their former value and esteem This being then the true state of the Case and the Condition we are fallen into since the beginning of the late Wars let us now proceed to examine the Causes of this great Mischief to make way for remedying the same and these may be sum'd up into these two grand ones to wit Our Wool and Cattel the latter of which was endeavour'd to be provided for by that Irish Act which utterly prohibited the bringing in of any sort of Cattel out of Ireland into this Kingdom upon forfeiture thereof when there was the same Reason at the very same time against the Importation of their Wool to wit to prevent the beating down the Rents of that part of the Kingdom which depended most upon breeding Let us now proceed and enquire into the Reasons of the low Rates and Prices of our Wool and we shall find that we may bring them under these few chief Heads First then The great quantity of Spanish Wool sold here at very low Rates and that made into Cloth and the most part of it to our shame worn by our Selves is a very great Cause of the Abatement and low Price of ours Secondly The not wearing and other ways using the Cloth made of our own Wool both by our selves at Home and by our People in our several Plantations abroad may be look'd upon as another Cause of the great Abatement of the Price of Wool Thirdly The decaying Condition of the Merchant-Adventurers and Hamborough Company who did formerly send away so many of our English Cloths into Germany and all those Eastern Parts of Europe more than now they do may be reckon'd another Cause of the low Price of Wool Fourthly The not making our Cloth of that Size and Substance as it ought to be as by several Statutes to that purpose it may appear and for which the Alnage Office was at first Establish'd And Lastly The great Abuses and Cheats of late years put upon our Clothiers by the Brokers and Factors at Blackwell-Hall to the breaking and undoing of many of our young Clothiers especially if their stocks be small These may be accounted some of the chief Causes of the great Abatement and low Price of our Wool We will Examine them in their Order And first concerning the Spanish Wool If we look no farther back than 1660 the Year of his Majesties happy Restauration We shall find that the Superfine Spanish Wool as they term it was sold for four shillings and four shillings and four pence the